OUR PLANS MULTIPLIED

In the beginning, JD adamantly only wanted two children. I thought that four would be perfect. Once we caught God's vision of putting orphans into families, our plan was multiplied by God. We are currently blessed with 12 children; five biological, six adopted and one more waiting in Ethiopia. Our first adoption was from the U.S., the next three were from Liberia, West Africa, and our last two were from Ethiopia. We are supporting our 12th child in Ethiopia after her adoption could not pass court.

Sunday, March 11, 2018

Last week was the final week of the basketball season. Since I never even mentioned it before, I took my camera to the final game. The team was for 8-9 year olds and Elijah and Selah played on it last year. I stuck Bella in there this year as she just turned 8 in January and it makes my life more efficient to have them all in the same place at the same time. She did pretty decently for a new player.

My three in one shot -

Selah is very good at getting the ball down the court, but barely makes baskets because she doesn't practice much. Elijah can get those baskets because he practices every chance he gets. Next sport up is Elijah playing flag football. He wants to play tackle, but he's quite little and I think he'd get broken. Flag it is!

Elijah shooting

So, last week, most of the puppies
went to their new homes. The last one just left two days ago and went to
my good friend, Wendy. The big boy we kept, Alaska, is enjoying
learning the farm dog life, but napping under the kitchen table during
breaks.

Poor Montana can still not have the run of the land, as she takes off. I am seriously hoping that the underground fence that is going in the next few will work wonders to give her freedom and keep her home!

The debate is whether to enclose the entire chicken structure in Montana's zone or cut it short. At this point, she is way too rough to be the chicken's guard; that is Fiona's domain.

Our final two baby goats were born on Friday morning - Banjo and Barley, born to Agnes. I think I'm going to have to keep Barley; she looks like Vinny, the daddy goat I sold.

This is Anges with Banjo, isn't he darling? She is doing a great job being a first time mother.

Yesterday I hauled the kids out to the barn with me; James installed guinea-proof wiring in the rafters of the barn, Elijah accompanied JD to the big dump (and counted 90 eagles!), and the girls helped me with the goats, while Bella babysat the puppy. We dewormed and trimmed the hooves of 8 adults and the 6 babies, then JD wethered the four little boys. All in all, a good time!

This is Betsy, the papered baby girl that I am going to sell this year.

Alaska is getting just about too big to be lugged around. Amazing how much he has grown!

Our next week adventure is HUGE - Julia's biological sister, that was adopted into a family in Canada, is coming to visit with her mom for the week. They arrive Tuesday - the girls haven't seen each other since Julia was 6 months old!

Jenny

Wednesday, February 28, 2018

We are drawing to the end of the puppy time. We are keeping one and there are two that I just advertised today, so going from eight to three will be a nice decline for the demand on Montana. They are the cutest thing ever but it's hard to walk, feed, etc, eight puppies. For the most part, they are outside during the day and in at night and the puppy kingdom doesn't smell very good in the mornings!

I feel like regular life has been on hold with the puppies, but we do do other things. Did I ever cover the fact that Bella turned 8 and Tori turned 13? Well, that happened at the end of January. Tori is still awaiting her party, you guessed it, until after the puppies are out of the gated community downstairs. ( I need to plan that TODAY!)

Bella got real cow-girl boots, now she just needs a horse!

Other good news is that the llama and lapaca are settling in nicely. I like the fact they are far less needy than the goats are and donkey was! They just graze and don't storm the barn every time the goats are fed.

And here is some awesome news! My four baby boy goats are being sold to the local Berry Farm here for their petting zoo area. They are also going to be the spring 2018 goat yoga babies. (Yes, goat yoga is a real thing!) They are going to be famous. They are very excited!

Jenny

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

The puppies are 5.5 weeks old and today was sunny and warm; we took them out for some adventure time and just ignored the huge puddles everywhere that the puppies walked through. It is the first time we have walked them around the barnyard and fence area. It took a bit to get them moving, but they caught on and tromped with us.

This one was crying at the wall after he couldn't figure out how to get up.

They spent some time analyzing the creatures on the other side of the fence.

Butte looking especially Butteful today, don't you think? Actually, it's amazing how cute she is with her ears up, and then she goes to this strange appearance when she slicks them back. Glacier is just cute all the time.

If there is any rustling in the barn, they all have to go check out the possibility of it being grain.

This puppy is rather confused by the concept of a llama. He kept staring.

It doesn't matter how much fun they are having, they get too tired and just go to sleep.

We lugged them to the backyard puppy pen for naps in the sun. They will be ready for another round soon.

Jenny

Tuesday, February 6, 2018

Our new farm additions are a huarizo and a llama. If you don't know what a huarizo is, don't feel badly as we didn't either - it is half llama and half alpaca. It appears more as a llama, but makes it a smaller, more manageable size. We made the trip two hours away, into the mountains to a petting zoo. They actually were taken from another zoo and bought by this zoo, just to resell. Anyway, I only intended on coming home with the white huarizo, that I named Glacier. While there, however, JD became concerned that she wouldn't do well without one of her friends, so he impulse purchased a full size two year old llama that was the friendliest of the llama bunch.

The group text we always have going with our big kids announced JD choosing a llama, followed by several big kids responding with things like, "right, don't believe that". It took some convincing for them to not "blame" me for the extra llama.

I told JD he could name his llama as long as he stuck with a mountain theme. He decided on Butte. A butte for those that don't know is an isolated mountain with steep sides and a flat top; there is a mountain in Montana named Square Butte. Butte is pronounced like Beauty without the Y. JD is finding it humorous due to the spelling. She doesn't mind and may wish to go by "Brown Butte."

They have both been housed with a white male llama for some time, so either or neither may be bred. Hopefully it won't be in the dead of next winter as they have a 11 month gestation. The male llama seemed nice enough until we loaded two of his three ladies in our horse trailer, and then he proceeded to spit at us through the trailer slats. He had pretty good aim and hit JD once from ten feet away.

The llama is much more outgoing that the "lapaca" at this point, but I did have Glacier eating out of my hand tonight. They just need some stability and love, and a hair-dresser, but that will have to wait.

I'm pretty excited about the addition of them. For now I just have them with each other to settle before they go out in the field with the goats.

Jenny

Monday, February 5, 2018

All this puppy hoopla has stolen some goat cuteness time. In the month of January, Lady had twins, Leia had quads, but we lost the little girl, Storm had a single girl and Daisy had a single boy. I have spent a lot of time with prospective buyers here to see the puppies and goats and that is only going to increase when I advertise them.

Here is a picture of Leia with her triplet boys. She is my first goat and five years old and she isn't a very good mother this year, she continually lays down to avoid feeding them and we are supplementing them with bottles. (They were just de-horned in this pictures which makes for ugly marks for a week or so.)

We are leaving in a few minutes to add something rather exciting (I hope!) to the farm - stay tuned!

Jenny

About Me

I am living my dream of being a mom of many, including adopted children, and living on a farm. Our farm is a work in progress, but we have a beautiful Amish barn. I am using this blog to chronicle our rarely dull day to day life as a memory for my children.